SYTYCD - Auditions 5/22

After much anticipation in our house, season 4 of So You Think You Can Dance finally started tonight! Ruby stayed up late with me to watch and *almost* made it all the way through both hours.

I’m glad that they ended up cutting Jonathan (the Italian guy) in choreography. Remember how some of the judges thought Danny had an attitude last year? No…..THIS was an attitude! GEEZ! He has potential but I think he would have been a PITA to work with.

Can you believe “Sex” came back again? That guy is just determined to get his 15 minutes of fame, huh?

The visually impaired girl, Laura, was really pretty good. I think that they were right to cut her because she wasn’t “professionally polished” enough and with the speed that the competition moves at, I don’t think she would have been able to keep up.

Glad to see Twitch back and through to Vegas again! And Phillip Chbeeb too! (Wasn’t he the one Shane Sparks called “sick” last year?!)

ETA after a good night's sleep: William Wingfield (the “poem” guy…..I called him “gangsta-lyrical” LOL!) actually blew me away. His solo was bare-bones simplicity. It flowed well and followed the story of the spoken-word piece that he chose. It may not have been the best “showcase” for his talents in an audition like this when many of the other dancers are so busy showing off their "tricks." We know Mia got it though and he is sure to be one of her favorites through the audition process. I thought that he was very memorable and I’m glad he’s through to Vegas. I can’t wait to see more of him and see what he can do.

Video of William available here http://www.rickey.org/?p=7981.

Leonidas & Aliona were very hot! They were polished and had fantastic lines. I felt they were a little too “muggy” for the audience though. Hopefully that is something that can be worked out of them because it won’t work well in the other styles.

Of the couples, I liked Ricky & Asuka better than L&A. Their footwork was really nice and I thought they had a much better connection. Amazing that they have only been dancing together for 3 mos!

Kherington Payne was my favorite girl. (The soccer player.) Her elevation and lines were lovely. She has real extension and tension in her body when she dances. She was super expressive and had that magnetic star quality that just drew you in to watch her. (Dominic was a riot watching her!)

I wish Shane Sparks would have been there to see that last popper guy, Robert Muraine! Dang! He was amazing at what he does! I was a little surprised that they put someone so specialized through to Vegas w/o doing choreography though. I hope that isn’t a mistake. If he can’t partner, what’s the point? I hope he can as he would be very entertaining to watch all season! (Imagine what Mia would do with him!) His isolation of movement is mind-boggling. Ruby fell asleep and missed him. I hope I can find him on You Tube tomorrow!

OK…..that’s my thoughts on the night. Anyone else!?

Oh…..BTW….yes, I do take notes, LOL! Have since last season. Ruby got a notebook and tried to take notes tonight too. She copied the dancer’s names from my notebook and then she had me write “good” and “bad” and “kinda” on the side of her page so she could label each one! ROTFL! The cute part is that she was also talking in technical language about what they were doing for the first half of the show though! She was commenting on arabesques, pirouettes and frames. :-)